Ever since the reveal of an apparent 'Switch 2' motherboard online, fans have been going crazy speculating what kind of technology Nintendo's upcoming new console will boast.
In fact, we'd say many of them could easily become Professor Layton's new protégés if they wanted to. The level of analysis of these things is frankly beyond the pale, and given how close we are to potentially uncovering this thing, we're starting to wonder if it's all worth the effort.
It is interesting though. take zcomuto on Reddit, for example (thanks Game Ranx). This user presented a complex, if fascinating, analysis of the motherboard based on images posted online. In it, they state that Nvidia's chip is likely manufactured by Samsung and is essentially Nvidia's 8nm 'Ampere' architecture, originally introduced in 2020. This has since been overtaken by 2022's 'Lovelace' architecture, which has some users online worried about possible power shortages with Switch 2.
Basically, people are hoping that the Switch 2 will use 5nm or even 3nm chips, instead of the 8nm chip that zcomuto allegedly revealed here. The numbers are almost meaningless in a technical sense and are widely used as marketing terms, but in short, the lower the number, the more technically advanced the chip is, boasting increased transistor density, higher speed and reduced power consumption.
It's important to note, however, that the Switch 2 can also use DLSS upscaling technology to boost the resolution of its games, hopefully allaying concerns about its apparent use of Nvidia's 'Ampere' chip.
Additionally, zcomuto has also determined that, based on previous manifesto leaks, the storage chip is likely to be 256GB UFS-1 (the actual text in the photo is illegible, however), which would mean a significant increase over the current Switch family of systems, the maximum of which is 64 GB. We also reportedly have two 6 GB LPDDR5x RAM modules in dual channel, making a total of 12 GB of RAM. 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM have been rumored for a while now, but it looks like the motherboard photos, if true, could confirm that.
Finally, it appears that the card reader inside the Switch 2 is likely capable of reading both Switches and Swap 2 games. Switch games have been confirmed to be fully playable via backwards compatibility, so unless there's a dedicated reader specifically for Switch 2 games (something like the DS had a GBA slot), then you'll only be using one reader for both platforms .
We say it over and over, but it's always worth repeating: it's entirely possible that none of this is true. This is an analysis performed on several leaked images that, while certainly convincing, have not been proven to be 100% legitimate (or based on the final version, for that matter). They probably arebut maybe they are not. No doubt it will be some time before we know the true details of the Switch 2's technical capabilities, as it is likely that Nintendo itself will not reveal such information during or after the eventual launch.
